Stricklin and the University of Florida announced the hiring of Jacobs on Tuesday afternoon just five months after he resigned from his athletic director position at Auburn. According to the university release, Jacobs will have the title of executive associate athletic director and will oversee of the athletics communications, marketing, ticketing and GatorVision departments.

Stricklin worked in the Auburn athletics department with Jacobs from 1993-98 when Stricklin was an associate media relations director as a liaison to the Tigers baseball program. During that time, Jacobs was a higher ranking member of the Auburn athletics department as associate athletics director for operations. Now Jacobs will be one of Stricklin’s subordinates in Gainesville, Florida.

"Florida Athletics is fortunate to have someone of Jay's caliber joining the (University of Florida)," Stricklin said in a statement. "His character, vision, experience and ability to connect with people will be tremendous assets to our department. Additionally, having served in a leadership role in the SEC, Jay understands the great privilege and responsibility we have as a member of this wonderful conference. It's exciting to have Jay joining the Gators."

In the university release, Florida athletics is selling this move as a second homecoming for Jacobs after he graduated from Wolfson High School in Jacksonville, Florida, before heading to Auburn as a walk-on offensive lineman.

University of Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, left, smiles as he talks to Florida’s new NCAA college football coach Dan Mullen after Mullen arrived at the airport in Gainesville, Fla., Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Mark Long)

During Jacobs’ near 13-year tenure, Auburn has won 11 national championships, including the 2010 football, and 24 conference championships. Jacobs also oversaw the initial partnership with the national brand Under Armour apparel company in 2006, which also included a $78.1 million extension through 2025. The extension, signed in October 2015, was at that time the largest apparel contract agreement by an SEC school. Jacobs announced on Nov. 3 that he’d resign from his athletic position at Auburn after a 13-year tenure, and Auburn hired his successor Allen Greene just a few months later.

Jacobs made the resignation announcement during a tremulous 2017 calendar year that included multiple Title IX complaints against the women’s softball program. The internal investigation into the softball program, which led to Corey Myers’ midseason resignation and Clint Myers’ retirement, included Jacobs writing a public statement where he admitted a “wrongdoing took place by the assistant coach on the softball team” and that “I could have been more forthcoming about the investigation." A month after the accusations against the softball program surfaced, men’s basketball assistant coach Chuck Person was indicted with six federal crimes including bribery conspiracy, solicitation of bribes and gratuities, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and travel act conspiracy. Person’s arrest led to the school to conduct an internal investigation of the men’s basketball program. A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama against the university’s board of trustees and athletic department claims an assistant coach with Auburn's track and field team from 2014-2016 was discriminated against and his contract wasn't renewed due to an altercation with assistant track and field coach Henry Rolle.

Jay Jacobs, Auburn Athletic director, speaks to members of the media on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016, before the Quarterback Club event in Montgomery, Ala.

Jacobs was responsible for the hiring of Myers, men's basketball coach Tony Barbee (who presided over Auburn’s worst four-year stretch in the sport), baseball coach Sunny Golloway (who was fired with cause but now has sued for wrongful termination) and football coach Gene Chizik. Chizik was paid $7.5 million after getting the largest buyout in school history following an extension after a national championship season in 2010, but he was fired two years later after the school’s first winless Southeastern Conference record since 1952.